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Thoreau

I went to the woods becauseI wished to live deliberately,to front only the essentialfacts of life, and see ifI could not learn whatit had to teach, and not,when I came to die,discover that I had not lived.I did not wish to livewhat was not life,living is so dear;nor did I wishto practise resignation,unless it was quite necessary.I wanted to live deepand suck out all the marrow of life,to live so sturdily and Spartan- likeas to put to rout all that was not life,to cut a broad swath and shave close,to drive life into a corner,and reduce it to its lowest terms,and, if it proved to be mean,why then to get the whole andgenuine meanness of it,and publish its meannessto the world;or if it were sublime,to know it by experience,and be able to givea true account of itin my next excursion.

12 February, 2007

Everyone eats tuna

I know it may seem like no big deal, but today my entire family ate the same lunch. Cooking will now be much easier going forward.

It is also one of those moments when you realize that your "new baby" isn't so new anymore. Lucy is 8 months old now. And while she only has 1 1/2 teeth, she is already a chow hound eating a tuna melt for lunch today and pizza last night for dinner.

I think most people were worried that if we had a second child Jake would somehow injure me while I was pregnant, or that Jake would hurt a tiny new baby. Well Jake, as it turns out is the nicest big brother on the planet and we have not had even one scary incident betwixt the kids. Now I really do wonder why we waited so long to have another child. Fear is so powerful.

Fear may be even more powerful if you are on the smarter or more creative side of life. With fear, your amazing intellect can conjure up all sorts of bad things that "could" happen. Like my father, I am able to create fantastic scenarios then with each horrible thing I imagine, I create the contingency plan that saves my baby, my family, my friends, the dogs, the house, the car, the planet..what or whomever lies in peril.

It is exhausting. It also means that I have tennis shoes under my bed, rope in the car, Jake's bus vest and a leash with which to tether him at the back door, extra towels in the laundry room, spare cell phones and more than 50 batteries of all shape and size. We also have cash and coins at the house (not that much so don't get any ideas that we are worth stealing from) and my cell phone is always charged and my gas tank always has at least 60 miles worth of gas (to get to the East Bay to Descartes' parents... or an hour outside of the Bay Area). I have pedia-sure, dried milk and diapers in every size. Spare medications, paper plates, several sets of silverware, enlough liquor to whet every whistle in town, AAA, way too much car insurance, homeowners insurance life insurance and Earthquake insurance which doesn't even kick in until there is more than 60k worth of damage to my home.I have every single phone number plugged into my cell phone, 2 dozen eggs and an extra gallon of milk in the outside fridge, two propane tanks filled and ready to grill, and a corded phone so we can still make calls if we have a land line but no electricity. All of our cars have AWD and we have a pop up trailer that we can live in at a moment's notice.

There are more things I do, more things I have stored. Am I a freak, is this just being well-prepared in Earthquake country?